Not All Battles Are Fought On The Battlefield
by Helen Faulkner
Summary: Hawkeyes life is just starting to fall into place, he is in love and  is loved in return but then he becomes ill and knows that he faces one of the  toughest battles there is.     Please be aware of explicit scenes and severe  illness/symptoms of illness.
1. Chapter 1

Not All Battles Are Fought On The Battlefield.

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_Note from the author: _

_This story deals with a character having __leukaemia__ and going through primitive treatments and side effects which at that time were not widely treated. _

_I do not personally have any experience with this either from treatment or watching a family member go through treatment so all details are from research and symptoms, while real, are portrayed in the fictional sense. _

_I do not intend to offend or upset readers in anyway, but felt that this story was worth writing down and publishing. _

_This story takes some liberties with history as most of the chemotherapy treatments we know about today were not developed until the 1960's. The story also mentions or refers to scenes within the original programme but does not follow the original timeline so even though scenes shown in seasons 10 and 11 are used it does not necessarily mean that the story is set towards the end of the war. Some facts are changed or omitted to fit better with the story (i.e. Margaret never had an affair with Frank and she never married Donald)_

_Here is some background on the first Leukaemia treatments for your reading pleasure._

_The first treatments that were shown to have an effect on tumours (lymphoma) and leukaemia were developed in 1946 when two scientists __Gilman and Philips, observed that the chemical weapon know as mustard gas, used in WW1, lowered the white blood cell count of those exposed to it. _

_They reasoned that if this chemical affected cells which divide rapidly, such as tumor cells, then it might be a useful treatment against cancer. Studies that involved injecting the compound into patients rather than having them breathing the gas showed that lymphomas did indeed shrink, however the treatment also affected other rapidly dividing cells such as hair follicles (leading to hair loss), the digestive tract (leading to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and sometimes malnutrition and weight loss) and the blood cells (leading to anemia and causing patients to bruise easily). Fatigue was another side affect but at the time it was not known whether this was due to the treatment or the cancer itself._

_In 1947 a research doctor called Sidney Farber discovered another group of cancer fighting drugs called 'antifolates' – these impair the function of folic acids in the body and inhibit DNA cell division during the S phase (when DNA is replicated) affecting the growth and proliferation of cancerous cells. _

_Farber's work led to the development of Methotrexate in 1949 which was the first treatment used for Leukemia. During the 1950's and 60's more chemotherapy drugs were developed but it is the 1960's which are seen as the decade when therapeutic chemical medicine became widely used in the treatment of cancers and significantly increased the chances of survival. _

_The story also has Hawkeye and Margaret dating (before the episode comrades in arms) and not hiding their feelings as they are both single. Please be aware that the first scene is graphic but only describes feelings and foreplay, not the actual act of sex. You guys can imagine that on your own._

_I do not own any of the characters._

_Please review._

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Captain Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce wrapped his arms around the young woman in front of him and breathed in her scent; even in this hell hole that was the Korean conflict, with limited access to shampoo and soap, she smelt delicious.

He craned his neck and gingerly nibbled her ear, moving down and kissing her neck with slow gentle movements, enjoying the shudders that racked her firm body with every little touch.

It hadn't been love at first sight, from the moment he had seen her he had felt a familiar tug in his groin; she was beautiful; a lotus flower amongst the death and destruction that was war. He had lusted after her body.

Their first encounter had been in the operating room at the MASH unit known to HQ as the 4077th. He had tried to impress her, telling jokes and making suggestions as to what they could do outside of 'work.'

She had not been impressed and he had quickly learned that she was as military as they came, a stickler for the rules and a control freak and yet underneath she was a passionate woman, longing to be loved and cared for, wanting a home and family as every woman does. She had clear ideas about her future; she would marry into the army, someone with at least the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war they would settle down somewhere and have a family, the children would be brought up in her mould as law abiding citizens and patriotic Americans. Her idea's had changed though.

He would never quite know what it was that he had said or done but there had been an instant where the two of them were just standing alone and something had clicked. Lust had turned into love in that moment as he realised that her mind was as beautiful as her body.

She had lowered her guard for just a moment, she had been vulnerable, scared and there was this man, holding her close in an embrace that was nothing more than comforting. This man that was the antihero to her heroic ideal, the man that wore Hawaiian shirts or a bathrobe and shorts where uniform was required and refused to either accept or give salutes as military rules required and yet this man was as passionate as her. Ok so he was loud and rude and thought a lot of himself. Surgeons did; it was the God complex; they had the ability to save lives so therefore they must be great and loved by all women.

But there was something deeper, his over confident manner was a facade to hide his true nature, he cared deeply about everything and everyone whether he knew them or not. When a soldier died on the operating table he took it far harder than the other surgeons, what she had thought initially was drunkenness she now realised was the only way he could cope with the surroundings, the only way he could cope with the fact that young men were dying for a cause that he didn't agree with. In that instant in his arms she had learned more about the real Hawkeye than most people learned in a lifetime. It was like she had read his mind and found buried treasure.

Both had taken it slow at first, scared that what they felt was a dream, that things would go back to how they had been before. Every snatched moment was spent tentatively exploring each other, touching, tasting, questioning but never quite going all the way, it was as if sleeping together would ruin what they had, and yet they longed for each other.

Finally it had happened, no big furore, no brass bands, nothing special. It had been a long day in the operating theatre, thirteen hours, both had been exhausted to a point that words could not be found to describe what they were feeling. Sitting together in Margaret's tent, gently entwined and absently playing with one another; there was complete silence.

It had started as a kiss, long and lingering, neither party wanting to be the first to break away, until the urge to breath had become unbearable; Hawkeye had reached underneath her shirt then, feeling her soft, warm flesh between his fingers, waiting for her to slap him away, instead he felt her gasp and he gripped her harder, kissed her pouting hot lips more urgently until she sank down next to him, pulling his body closer, clawing at his clothes.

It had been worth waiting for, lying together on the small cot afterwards, still panting, the silence had returned, neither wanted to spoil the moment. Both were experienced, had been with others but this had been something special and deep in their hearts both knew they would never love another like this.


	2. Chapter 2

That had been a month ago and the bond between nurse and surgeon had only strengthened in the intervening days, so now they were here again in her tent and he was holding her, breathing in the familiar, yet delectable smell of her, caressing her in places that he knew would make her shudder with pleasure.

A sudden knock at the door roused the pair from their intimacy; breaking apart they hurried to make themselves look presentable.

"You have to go!" Margaret whispered urgently.

"Why?" the young man enquired

"We can't be seen together the whole camp will talk"

"So what, we're both single, we're not doing anything wrong."

Another knock, "Ma'am, its Radar. I have some mail for you."

"Just a minute corporal. I am just changing" the blonde woman called back. Clearly she was in turmoil wanting her lover to stay, wanting to shout from the roof tops that she loved him and yet afraid of what others might think or say. He was a Captain, she was a Major; they were totally different.

Hawkeye looked at the beautiful young woman before him, knowing in his heart that he didn't care if she was embarrassed to be seen with him, wanting to keep their relationship secret and special like the precious thing that it was and yet wanting to tell his friends about how he felt. BJ he knew had already figured out he was in love, however he didn't think his best friend had worked out who it was yet.

A silent signal passed between them, it was time to let the world know the truth, they were an item, in love, sleeping together.

"Ok Corporal, you may enter now" Margaret called, a slight catch in her voice as nerves made her tense.

The door opened and a small figure entered, head lowered concentrating on the letters in front of his bespectacled face "Three today Majo..." he began, pausing as looking up he saw his idol standing behind the camps head nurse "Captain Pierce?" he looked confused, these two hated each other, didn't they? They couldn't stand to be in the same room together, unless in a professional capacity and yet here all of a sudden they were together and smiling and it felt rather warm.

"Radar..." Hawkeye began to speak

"You Sir? And the Major Sir, m'am?" the young boy looked genuinely surprised

Margaret smiled then "Yes."

"Ooo wow, that's great, isn't it. I mean congratulations" round cheeks flushing, the young boy, for a moment, completely forgot his reason for being there until he felt the letters in his hand and looked back down. "Er your mail sir er ma'am" he stammered holding out the letters towards the blonde haired officer. "Do you want your mail too Hawk... I mean sir?" he asked quickly.

"What did I tell you about calling me sir?" Hawkeye asked, a smile curving his lips. As far as he was concerned Radar O'Reilly was his friend and that meant his equal despite what the army thought and friends called him by his given nickname. Dr Pierce or sir was his father not him.

"Well I mean you and the Major and I have to address her properly and salute and everything so if you are together then I should treat you in the same way and you're a sir, sir and, and..."

"Relax Radar. Nothing needs to change between us. We're friends remember and you call me Hawkeye just like I told you when we first met or if you must be formal then Captain Pierce is fine. Hawkeye wrapped his arms around Margaret's waist again and nuzzled her neck gently; it felt good that someone else knew about them, it made it real somehow.

Radar spun on his heels then, blushing furiously and trying to cover his eyes as he left muttering "I didn't see anything"

A few moments silence and then Margaret spun in her lovers arms looking into his eyes "Think he'll blab?" she asked quietly.

"Probably not, he'll still be working out what it means. After all as far as he is concerned we hate each other." He kissed her again, a short, gentle kiss of reassurance "Anyway, does it really matter if the camp knows about us?"

"No, I suppose it doesn't anymore" the senior officer relaxed once more into her lovers arms and breathed in the warm musky smell of him. War was hell but if something like this could come out of it, bring on the war.


	3. Chapter 3

_...Two days earlier..._

"Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you a girl too lovely to be really true? Do I want you because you're wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover's dream or are you really as beautiful as you seem?" Hawkeye sang loudly as he bathed, his mind in a whirl, no woman had ever done this to him before. The door creaked open and the dark haired man paused briefly in his song as Captain BJ Hunnicut entered with a grin.

"You've got it bad!" he stated simply as he slipped off his robe and entered the cubicle next door.

"Got what bad?" Hawkeye asked looking at his friend

"The love bug."

"Just because I decide to sing a popular love song that has been playing on the radio recently you assume I am in love?" rubbing soap into his skin the chief surgeon waited for a reply.

"Well if that was the only sign then no I wouldn't assume anything but you have been floating on air for over a month now, getting up early, dressing, being pleasant. Shaving!"

"That doesn't mean anything. It means I am sick of living like a slob and that I need to get my life back on track."

"And the not coming home for hours?"

"Walking, you said I needed to get more exercise. I go out and get some fresh air and you start making up stories about me."

"Who is she?"

"Will you quit it, there is no she"

"She's married then."

"No she is not married."

"Ah so there is someone"

Hawkeye grunted and silently cursed himself for falling for such a dumb ploy, he turned back to his shower and began washing the shock of black hair that was his physical trademark.

"So..." BJ hinted; he knew that if he played it cool he could get the information out of his friend but he would have to take it slow. It wouldn't be the first time that his friend had clammed up on him and refused to speak.

"So what?"

"Who is she?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because we're friends, you tell me who she is and I tell you how unsuitable she is for you or how bad you are for her and you try and convince me otherwise and then you admit your true feelings to yourself and stop hiding away and pretending that you're not in love."

"That's just stupid, why would telling you make me realise that I am in love when I am not."

"Ok forget the reasoning. I bet I can guess who it is."

Hawkeye looked at his friend with exasperation "You're not going to let this go are you?"

"Let me see, you already admitted that she is not married so that means it can't be Baker or Able and Tanner really isn't your type. Oh no not Simpson."

"Why not Simpson?"

"For a start you're almost old enough to be her father. It's not Simpson is it; tell me it's not Simpson."

"Fine it's not Simpson."

"It is, isn't it? Hawkeye!"

"Beej, it is not Simpson. I may be a bounder and a cad but I draw the line at cradle snatching" the tall surgeon turned to leave before his fair haired friend could continue the guessing game, after all there were not that many women left and he wanted to keep his love secret just a little longer. At least until he and Margaret had agreed to let their feelings be known.

"Hey what's that?" BJ suddenly looked at his friend and his tone became more serious?"

"What's what?"

"That bruise on your back?"

"Well Beej, a bruise is formed when blood vessels close to the skins surface break and cause a small clot to form sub-dermally usually after a forceful trauma or occasionally due to illness"

"Cute"

"Thank you" Hawkeye gave his friend a coy look, his usual response to being called cute.

"I meant where did you get it?"

"How should I know, I probably walked into a nurse."

"Are so your lover is a nurse?"

"BJ, all the women on camp are nurses, that is why they are here."

"Well I could just talk to Abel, she if she has noticed any of the other nurses behaving differently..."

"Fine, you do that" Hawkeye gathered his things and left to return to the swamp having unwittingly reduced the number of possibilities to one. After all if he was happy to let his friend talk to the nurses in an attempt to find out who was his lover then it meant that he knew they didn't know and that only left one, unmarried nurse on camp. Major Margaret Hoolihan.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a quiet day and Hawkeye and Margaret had taken the opportunity to take a walk in the nearby field, the quiet surroundings helping to blot out the war that seemed never ending. It didn't matter who saw them together now, the whole camp knew they were an item and no-one had said anything about it. A few had exhibited mild shock at the prospect of the two infamous enemies getting it together but most had been happy that both Chief Surgeon and Head Nurse had found love.

Hawkeye leaned back on the blanket and looked out over the green expanse, he absently picked at a piece of grass by his side.

Margaret leaned in for a kiss, surprised when he didn't respond. She'd thought that the romantic setting would encourage him; he hadn't been as attentive since the truth had come out. Could it be that he was going off her?

"What's the matter?" she asked, trying to hide the quaver in her voice as her paranoid mind tried to convince her that he had got what he wanted from her, sex, and now he was going to throw her away like all those other men.

"Nothing. I'm just tired" he smiled at her, she didn't look convinced. "Really. I think I must be getting Radar's cold or something. I was really cold earlier, now I'm hot and I had a headache last night so I didn't get much sleep. I'm sorry" he reached for her hand, and gingerly kissed the fine porcelain skin in a chivalrous manner.

"Are your glands swollen?" she asked

"Romance truly isn't dead. Darling I love you, are your glands swollen?" he joked, falling silent as she gave him a look. "I don't know. It doesn't matter it's just a cold."

Still the Major ran her fingers over his neck and under his chin, she was looking out for someone that meant a lot to her. Love meant looking after each other. She moved her touch down to his arm pits and laughed as he flinched away, she'd forgotten he was ticklish.

Forgetting her concern she tickled him again making him cry out with laughter and try to get away but she was on top of him now, pinning him to the ground and soon the tickling ceased, replaced by kissing that was both urgent and desperate, they were pulling at each other, rolling on the ground and panting, ignorant to their surroundings and simply enjoying themselves in their own private place.


	5. Chapter 5

Colonel Potter cleared his throat and looked at the assembled officers gathered in his office. "I suppose you're wondering why I roused you at such an early hour for this meeting. Well it is time for the annual camp physicals and I know that you love them so much that you wanted to get an early start so here is your chance. Any questions? Good"

The five groaned loudly. Camp physicals were the worst job, two hundred people needing routine health checks and only a couple of days to do them before ICORPS started demanding the reports. Potter was right an early start was the only way.

_**The standard operating procedure listed in the Army manual for physical inspection of active troops included the following basic tests:**_

_**Weight – a member of Uncle Sam's army is required to keep him or herself at a healthy weight and at the peak of physical fitness in readiness for action.**_

_**Temperature – one of the most basic tests for unidentified illness is presence of a fever or raised temperature. Results from this are checked against other tests to look for correlation.**_

_**Routine blood work – used to check for illness or weakness. Most often it is the best way of keeping STD's in check in a situation where men and women are more likely to have numerous sexual partners and contraception is not always readily available (dependent like most things on supplies)**_

_**Blood pressure – results must show a systolic reading between 90 and 120mmHg and a diastolic between 60 and 80mmHg.**_

_**X-rays – Generally more important for new troops to check for underlying skeletal problems however routine films of regular troops are used to check for injury however slight; malformations due to genetics or work load and disease that could seriously affect the structural component of the body.**_

_**Cough please – the standard test to check for herniation in males. Corpsmen in MASH units are more likely to suffer with this complaint as they spend a lot of time carrying heavy litters.**_

_**The annual physical was also a chance to administer booster vaccines, vitamin shots or preventative medicine such as gamma globulin which could prevent hepatitis A becoming endemic in a camp where everyone lived in each others shoes.**_

_**Officers were expected to check each other as standard.**_

"So Pierce, I guess it's that time again" Colonel Potter removed his glasses and leaned back in his chair, he was used to physicals, he'd had one every year since joining the army at 16 but every time he felt a nervous twist in his gut, what if this time he failed something, what if something was wrong. He pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind. "Would you prefer first or second?" he asked, it was customary in this camp that the Chief Surgeon took care of the commanding officer and vice versa.

"Age before beauty Colonel" Pierce quipped, indicating that he was in no rush to be examined himself. Thirty minutes later and the tests were completed, the Colonel had passed at least as far as visual inspection went, he wouldn't be fully okay dokied until the blood work and x-rays returned.

"Your turn, Pierce" the Colonel replaced his glasses and beckoned the younger man to remove his shirt so that he could begin. "Those bruises are impressive Pierce. Where did you get them?" Sherman examined the deep purple bruise on his patients arm and the two on his back that were already yellowing as they healed.

"I can't honestly remember Colonel. You know me, I was probably drunk or maybe I have added boxing to my midnight somnambulism's" the surgeon quipped, he had been known to sleepwalk and play games while fast asleep, it was quite possible that he had performed an activity which led to bruising. Without witness' no one would ever know for sure.

The Colonel nodded, although not completely convinced; Hawkeye Pierce was more of a relaxed drunk, sitting and laughing rather than staggering about and crashing into things and the nightmares and sleepwalking that had occasionally plagued him seemed to have ceased after his talk with Sidney Freedman, however he was not about to say anything. "You sound a little congested?" the older man remarked as he tested his patients breathing and lung function.

"I've had a cold. Guess the chestiness is still clearing up"

"I didn't notice you sneezing"

"I didn't get many symptoms, a slight fever which cleared in a couple of days and a bit of a cough which I assumed would clear in its own time."

Another nod, although the colonel couldn't help but worry, he'd know Pierce for several months now and he'd never known him to get sick, not even when the whole camp was down with something and he was surrounded by germs and bacteria. In fact as far as he knew the chief surgeon had only been ill once since coming to Korea and that was before he had arrived. According to Pierce, at least, he only got sick then because of a flu vaccine that Margaret had insisted he had to 'protect' him.

The rest of the exam was routine and the Colonel finished by drawing blood from the dark haired man, smiling in amusement as the surgeon screwed up his eyes and refused to watch the process. For someone that worked in medicine and frequently got covered in blood during operations, he was a wimp when it came to treatment.

"How long do you think it will take to process the blood samples?" Potter asked, making conversation while he transferred the sample to a vial and attached the patient's details.

"I dunno. Charles was going to get started this afternoon and then me and BJ were going to take it in shifts until the work was done. I guess about 2 to 3 days barring casualties. Why? Are you worried about something?"

"No, no just making sure we'll have the report ready on time. I don't fancy having my butt chewed out by some big brass that has never even worked in a hospital." It was a cover, something in the back of his brain was niggling, something that suggested his friend was not very well.


End file.
